In This Issue: How do You Spell Stagflation? Cooking the Inflation Books Gaming the Producer Price Index Consumer Spending is Up, but then Again, It May Be Down A Two Dimensional Problem Saudi Justice New York, Toronto, Europe and Thanksgiving This week...

The Return of Muddle Through The dollar reaches new lows. The housing market shows no sign of a bottom. Oil almost touches $84 before backing off. Interest rates go up after the Fed cuts. So naturally the stock market keeps climbing. But then, consumer...

Sea Change at the Fed "Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange" (The Tempest - Shakespeare) The term "sea change"...

The Black Swan "A similar effect is taking place in economic life. I spoke about globalization in Chapter 3; it is here, but it is not all for the good: it creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability...

Should the Fed Cut Interest Rates? The Shocker in the Employment Numbers Should the Federal Reserve Cut Interest Rates? Will A Cut Make Any Difference? How Housing Woes Hurt the Rest of the Economy Home Again, Home Again The unemployment numbers came...

Introduction Investors are constantly seeking "alpha," that elusive substance which yields returns in excess of a simple market portfolio. While I am flying today to Prague, this week good friend Rob Arnott teams up with associate John West...

The Panic of 2007 Muddle Through or End of the World? An Alphabet Soup of Credit Turning Nuclear Waste Into Gold (and Back Again!) Mrs. Watanabe and the Hedge Fund Connection The Rating Agency Blame Game Where Do We Go From Here? Hedge Funds to the Rescue...

The Fugu Ultimatum In the early fall of 1998, I remember being on a flight to Bermuda from New York. I was upgraded and sat next to a very distinguished looking gentleman. He was going to a conference about re-insurance and I was going to speak at a large...

The Mortgage Pig in the Python Inflation is Baked into the CPI Numbers The Mortgage Pig in the Python Housing Starts Look to Stop A Few Thoughts on the Recent Credit Crisis Half of All Hedge Funds Gone? Golf, Weddings, and Europe With the economy increasingly...

The Subprime Virus The Subprime Virus 2007 Mid-Year Forecast Compete With the Pros When the Facts Change Credit? What Credit? global Warming, Maine and San Antonio As predicted in this letter early this year, the credit markets have finally begun to tighten...

Fun in the Subprime Summer Hot Fun In The Summertime Collateralized Loan Obligations The Economic Outlook for Leveraged Credits The New Mickey Mouse Club Planes, Trains and Automobiles This week I am already in Maine and getting ready for a weekend of...

The Birth/Death Ratio Is the economy slowing down or is it getting ready to go on a new tear? Judging by the run-up in the Dow, the answer is a major turnaround for the economy in the last half of the year, from the close-to-recession numbers of the first...

Introduction This week we continue to look at an alphabet soup of problems: RMBSs, CDOs, Alt-A, BBB and - a new acronym to put on your radar screen - the very useful CDS. When does an AAA rating not mean an offering is ready for prime time? What type...

$250 Billion in Subprime Losses? Is the subprime mortgage market collapsing before our eyes, or did we avoid a disaster as Bear Stearns stepped up to the plate with $3.2 billion to help its ailing funds? As we will see from the data, the problems in the...